Cons:

Thirty-odd hours into playing Operation Darkness, I led the Wolfpack into battle against the forces of Hitler's undead army. Led by a pair of powerful vampires, the opposition included vampire magi, Panzer tanks, and shambling mobs of zombie Nazis, risen from the grave to take one last shot at me with their Luger pistols. The odds weren't in my favor, but our platoon, an elite group of British SAS operatives, included a pair of werewolves, a firestarter, a semi-crazed reanimator, a sexy sniper, and my personal favorite, a walking man-mountain named Frank Gaunt.

Frank was deadly with a machine gun, sturdy enough to soak up bullets and willing to get up close and personal when the situation demanded it. Unfortunately, Frank made far too tempting a target for the enemy to pass up, and he ended up playing catch with the business end of a Panzer tank. Time after time, Frank mustered the fortitude to spring back into action only to be assailed again and again by more tank shells and vampiric magic. The battle was won, but a heavy price was paid, for we were unable to revive Frank in time to save him.

He was gone.

It's been years since I've cursed myself for overwriting a save file, and the harsh realization that midway through this lengthy turn-based strategy game I had permanently lost one of my favorite characters was difficult to recover from. If you've ever permanently lost a hero in Fire Emblem, you know exactly what this was like. Yes, there were measures I could have taken to keep Frank out of danger, but part of the fun of Operation Darkness had been in playing a very aggressive sort of strategy that made combat more exciting than hiding behind corners and playing the defensive game.

Vampires, Nazis, Werewolves, Oh My!

My take on the Wolfpack was all about charging into battle with ten bazookas primed to destroy groups of enemy soldiers or armor, under the cover of my watchful sniper. Many explosions later, we'd mop of whatever was left with swords, machine guns and magic, as the situation dictated. While there were many different weapons available to choose from, you just can't beat the all-purpose power of a bazooka.

My love for blowing up Nazis, vampires and zombies allowed me to look past Operation Darkness' many shortcomings. This is a game with visuals that could easily work on the PSP. The backgrounds are bland, the character models are simple, and there's not much in the way of animation aside from lifting a gun here and there or firing off a magic ability. Watching Nazi zombies shuffle towards your squad and lift their disfigured arms to take shots with their Lugers is very cool the first time around, but far from enough to label this as anything close to visually impressive.